Teacher Routine Templates

Get in the habit of using these forms regularly. They will make your day a breeze and also protect you if parent or student accountability comes into question. These templates will help you speed up all of your normal everyday routines.

1. Alphabet Recognition - A great way to encourage parents to participate in their child's education.
2. Bloom's Taxonomy Verbs - This will help you determine the level of response you are anticipating from your students.
3. Book Mark Maker - Make simple book marks to help you remember where you left off. Includes room for a picture and a motivational slogan!
4. Bus Pass Generator - Make reproducible bus passes for your students. Make one for every teacher!
5. Hall Pass Generator - This generator can be used when students need to leave your room during instructional time.
6. Free School-to-Home Hard Drive - Sick and tired of carrying disks between home and school? We'll give you a hard drive that you can use anywhere.
7. Free Teacher Calendar - Create a free on-line calendar to share your schedule with students and parents which also allows everyone to print them out at anytime!
8. "I'm Late" Sign-in Sheet - Keep track of students that are late to your class and stop latecomers from being a disruption.
9. "I'm Leaving" Sign-out Sheet - Keep track of students that leave your classroom. A must for fire drills and student safety.
10. Rubric Generators - Make student rubrics for home work, projects, lab reports, listening, presentations, writing, general purposes, and more!
11. Personal Education Plan Generator - The PEP Generator creates a form that is a cross between a behavior contract and an IEP. It allows teachers to meet the needs of students who require modifications or curricular adaptations.
12. Teacher's Weekly Schedule Generator - This generator can be used to make a schedule for your day-to-day routine. This schedule can be used to help teachers, students, and parents.
13. Testing Modification Chart Generator - This generator can be used to make a chart that will assist all staff members that are involved in the assessment of special needs children.

The Importance of Teacher Routines

We know the importance of setting a schedule and rules to follow with students. It helps form regularity, discipline, and harmony in the classroom. But even as a teacher, you need a set of guidelines to help you regulate classroom activities. Not only do you need to take time for yourself between teaching periods, but you also need sufficient time to plan for the next lesson. Here's why setting a routine as a teacher is essential and how you can get started with making one.

Setting a Daily Teacher Routine

Making a teacher routine in the classroom helps regulate how you carry out your lessons and lets your students know what to expect, for example, you want them to put their bags away and set their pencils on the table in the morning. Once you establish this, they'll consistently follow it.

What Are They?

A routine is a way of doing things every day. But setting a routine isn't that easy. It takes time and practice for students to follow the pattern you set for them.

Procedures

Procedures are the expectations of students when they enter the classroom. This procedure helps make sure that the routine is carried out. If you expect them to enter the classroom in the morning, the procedure would include walking in a cue and being quiet while doing it.

Explicit Teaching

The best way to establish a class teacher routine is to state what you want from students explicitly.

Intentional Practice

You can't just state one instruction and expect it to be followed the exact way you want it.

Cover Everything

The benefits of a teacher routine are that once you cover everything, students will behave systematically during lessons because they'll know what you want. However, as a teacher, it's your job to ensure you don't miss anything.

Morning Teacher Routine

Your morning teacher routine is the first thing you do when entering the classroom. There are a lot of tasks to accomplish before the start of a lesson. Having a habitual morning routine makes it easier to follow it. Here are some everyday tasks for your morning teacher routine:

Mail Check

You can start by checking your mail and ensuring there aren't any parents trying to get in touch with you. You could also use this early morning time to respond to parent messages.

Lesson Prep

Before students arrive, you must utilize this time to ensure you're prepared to teach them. The early morning work should be ready to hand out to the students, any classroom materials that need to be distributed must be printed and read, and you know which homework to collect.

Class Schedule

The daily class schedule needs to be updated so students know what lessons and learning they'll have on that day.

Afternoon Teacher Routine

This is when the school day has just ended and you're in a rush to head home there are a lot of benefits to having an organized way of wrapping up the day before you go. If you don't clean up, you'll have a huge mess to face the next day and you might misplace important papers.

Desk Clean Up

It's time to clear your desk off pencils, pens and loose sheets of paper. This way you'll have a clear head the next morning. A messy desk will negatively impact your productivity.

Photocopies

Printers take forever; this is a universally known fact. It's better to print out the handouts or tests for the next day in advance and make copies for the whole class.

More Grading

If you have any leftover grading, you can utilize this time to complete it. Any free time for grading counts! Don't waste it.

Phone Calls and Emails

As a teacher, you don't just deal with students, you also have to deal with their parents. This includes making calls to parents regarding parent-teacher meetings or their child's progress. You can also use this time to connect with other teachers and coordinate lesson plans.

Organizing Materials

Clean up class materials and the mess left behind by students.

How to Spend Lunch and Planning Period Time

Lunch should be spent on eating. It's exhausting enough being a teacher as it is; there's no point wasting the precious breaks you get to eat. Planning periods are usually the time between periods when your students are taking another lesson. This is the time that most teachers like to use to plan their next class. However, it's not a lot of time, so it's better to do menial tasks like organizing your files. You can even use this time to squeeze in some extra grading. Any teacher knows that grading papers takes a lot of time so you'll have more free time if you grade a few at a time.

Teacher's Procedures

Every teacher has their own way of collecting student grades, organizing class handouts and arranging parent-teacher meetings. Make sure you have yours planned out in the way you prefer. This will ensure that everything runs smoothly throughout the school year and that you're not misplacing any homework. Like student procedures, a teacher's standard procedures will also require practice before it becomes a routine. One easy way to follow a fixed teacher's routine is by using a teacher schedule app, there are many apps available to help you plan your day.

Hopefully, you now understand the benefits of a teacher routine and how to set one for yourself. Teaching is a hectic job, and it gets hard to manage, especially if you're teaching multiple subjects. Making a teacher routine helps you navigate the stressors and unexpected obstacles you might face during the school year. After all, it's nice knowing you have a checklist waiting for you, so you're productive throughout the day.

How to Start a New Routine and Stick to It

Building a new routine can revitalize your mind and body. New and improved changes increase productivity and make you feel happier and more energetic. Building new habits could be difficult, as our body takes time to adapt to changes. However, you can easily achieve the goal with determination and following guidance.

Here are 10 tips to start a new routine, which will also ensure that you may stick to it.

1. Make a routine that works for you

You have to make changes to your routine according to your lifestyle. Everyone has a different schedule, which they should consider before making any changes to their plans. Decide what you need to include in your new routine; if it's more time to study or exercise, cut out everything else that doesn't serve the purpose. For example, if you feel more productive at night, you don't have to be a morning person. Decide what works best for you, and then go for it.

2. Plan your day

Every person has different energy levels at different times of the day. Plan your day according to the time you feel most active. For example, if you know someone who manages to get most of their work done before 10 am, it doesn't mean you need to set it as a standard for yourself. Similarly, every day demands new tasks.

The best strategy is to plan your day as soon as you wake up. List all the tasks you need to do, prioritize them, and add or remove them accordingly. This way, you will have a perfect scheduled plan for your day.

3. Start with small goals

Setting small goals will help you achieve them easily, increasing your productivity. Making big changes might cause you to reel back and lose track of your new routine.

Start by taking up small tasks and moving on to the bigger ones when you have completed them. This will help build up your confidence and guarantee that your new routine is giving you positive results. Breaking tasks into smaller parts will make them much easier to achieve.

4. Make a flexible schedule

Every day brings a new task that will surely interfere with your day's plan. Your schedule should have enough room to make changes in your routine without throwing off your whole plan. Give yourself a margin for breaks between tasks so that if something comes up, you can incorporate it into your schedule. This thing will make your routine less stressful and makes you feel more relaxed.

5. Be consistent

Make strict efforts to follow your routine. Have a specific mindset and remember your objective. It will generally take a few weeks for your body to adapt to the new changes. Until then, you must be determined and keep working towards them until they become a habit.

Follow your plans on time. For example, waking up or going back to bed at the same time every day will help you follow your schedule successfully. Remember, consistency is the key to success.

6. Try it for a few days

Test out your routine for a few days and check if it suits you. You cannot check off all the boxes in a single day, so keep tweaking the tasks and figure out what recipe makes your day most productive. Some changes might work for you, and some may not; instead, they make your routine even more difficult to follow. Consider your work or study schedule and see if your new routine can easily incorporate your necessary tasks.

7. Make changes

If you feel like your current plan isn't working for you, don't be afraid to make changes. Cross out anything that takes up unnecessary time or doesn't leave time for other tasks. Adjust your routine according to your daily activities.

For example, if exercise in the morning makes you too tired for the rest of the day, try doing it before bedtime. Making suitable changes in routine will reduce the stress level and improve your mental health as well.

8. Keep a record of your progress

A journal or an agenda might help you plan your day and make to-do lists. This way, at the end of each day, you will be able to see your progress and how far you've come. Check whether your new routine is helping to reach your goals. For example, if you are trying to lose a few pounds by the end of the week by adding more workout hours, a record maintained in the journal will help you find whether you have achieved the goal.

9. Enjoy your new routine

Whenever you wake up in the morning, add exciting tasks to your routine so that you look forward to them. Nobody likes all work and no fun. A boring day will make you less inclined to follow your routine. Add fun elements to make the boring tasks more achievable, like creating a playlist for when you are cleaning the house or finding a workout partner to accompany you at the gym.

10. Don't go hard on yourself

It takes a long while for your body and brain to adopt the changes. A new routine always seems hard at first, and it is normal to fail a couple of times initially. If you slip up, move on to the next task. Keep trying, do not push yourself, and keep working towards the goals you have set for yourself.

Switching up your routine could be difficult initially Don’t get disappointed - build your new habits with your willpower, self-determination, and confidence. This will make you a healthy and energetic individual.